COURSE NUMBER: EWMBA 204.32A

COURSE TITLE: Operations

UNITS OF CREDIT: 2 units

INSTRUCTOR: Rachel Chen

E-MAIL ADDRESS: TBD

CLASS WEB PAGE LOCATION: bCourses

PREREQUISITE(S): None

REQUIRED READINGS: TBD

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE: TBD

CAREER FIELD: Operations is one of the primary functions of a firm. This core course is useful for anyone interested in learning about this function.

ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:
This course introduces students to concepts and techniques related to matching supply with demand in manufacturing and service operations. The goals are to make students conversant in the language of operations management, provide them with quantitative and qualitative tools to analyze basic operations issues and allow them to see the role of operations management in the overall strategy of the firm. The course covers topics in process and capacity analysis, inventory management, demand uncertainty, supply chain management, service operations and revenue management. In each module, students are introduced to tools for analyzing operations problems and methods of managing that aspect of operations. Students prepare cases for class discussion, analyze cases and problem sets and participate in simulations/exercises. The objective is to create as much interaction with operations issues as possible, allowing students to examine how they affect an organization's overall performance.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:
Professor Rachel Chen is an expert in operations research and supply chain management. Her work has been published in leading journals, including IIE Transactions , Management Science , Marketing Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management , Operations Research Letters  and Production and Operations Management .

Chen has presented her research widely in the U.S. and internationally, including the International Annual Overseas Chinese Scholars Association in Management Science and Engineering (OCSAMSE) Conference (Tianjin, China), Shanghai University of Finance and Economics; Shanghai JiaoTong University , the Production and Operations Management Society (POMS ) Conference, Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management , the Manufacturing and Service Operations Management Society (MSOM ) Conference (Haifa, Israel), the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS ) Conference, the Michael H. Rothkopf Memorial Conference , Penn State University’s Smeal College of Business , and many more. She is an associate editor of Decision Science Journal and IIE Transactions and serves on the editorial reviewer board of Production and Operations Management. She is a former associate editor of the Decision Science Journal.

Chen grew up in central China and moved to Shanghai to attend Tongji University and pursue a bachelor’s degree in computer science. Three years later, she obtained her master’s in management information systems from Fudan University. She received her M.S. from Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management in 2002 and her Ph.D. in operations management a year later. She taught for three years at the UC Riverside Graduate School of Management before joining the faculty at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management.

Research Expertise: Operations and supply chain management, service operations and dynamic pricing